^ky^^s.^^^^css^ 


HG 

^  AN   ESSAY 


PRODUCTION, 


MONRY  AND  GOVERNMENT; 


The  Principle  of  a  Natural  Law  is  Advanced  and  Explained, 


CllEDlT,  DEirr,  TAXATION,  TARIFFS,  AND  INTEREST  ON  MONEY  WILI. 

1]E  ABOLISHED  ;    AND  NATIONAL  DEBT  AND   THE   CURRENT 

EXPENSES  OF  GOVERN^MRNT  WILL  BE  P.VID  IN  GOLD. 

UC-NRLF 


^B    2M2    M^fl 


By    WILLIAM    ALEXANDEli    THOMSON 


CNi 

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BUFFALO: 
PRINTING  HOUSE  OF  WHEELER,  MATTHEWS  t  WARREN, 

COMMERCIAL   AnVF.RTlSKR   BUILniKGS. 
iBG3. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/essayonproductioOOthomrich 


AN  ESSAY 


PEODUOTION, 


MONEY  AND  GOVEMMENT; 


The  Principle  of  a  Natural  Law  is  Advanced  and  Explained, 


CREDIT,  DEBT,  TAXATION,  TARIFFS,  AND  INTEREST  ON  MONEY  WILL 

BE  ABOLISHED  ;    AND  NATIONAL  DEBT  AND  THE  CURRENT 

EXPENSES  OF  GOVERNMENT  WILL  BE  PAID  IN  GOLD. 


By   WILLIAM   ALEXA]^DE.K   THOJ^lSOISr, 


BUFFALO  : 
PRINTING  HOUSE  OF  WHEELER,  MATTHEWS  k  WARREN, 

COMITERCIAL  ADTERTISEE  BUILDINGS. 

1863. 


Entered  according  to  the  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1863, 

By  WILLIAM  ALEXANDER  THOMSON, 

In  the  Clerk's  office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Northern 
District  of  New  York. 


Stereotyped  by 
TThxklxx,  Matthews  &  ^tiSszti^  '     « 
BU1TA1.0,  N.  T. .  '  ; 


p' 

^ 


Preface 


Reader,  in  the  present  essay  I  have,  in  the  briefest  way,  attempted 
to  draw  attention  to  some  of  the  greatest  principles  of  human  hfe,  and 
I  have  undertaken  to  show  the  necessary  relation  which  is  designed 
to  exist  between  the  functions  and  duty  of  man  and  certain  laws  of 
nature,  which  have  been  since  the  beginning  of  time. 

Life,  with  its  aims  and  purposes,  appears  to  me  as  gathering  its 
results  into  a  profitless  and  puny  issue.  The  individual  seems  lost  in 
mankind.  Chains  have  been  riveted  out  of  material  transactions,  bind- 
ing him  hand  and  foot.  It  is  held  to  be  a  virtue  to  labor  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  thought  and  human  enjoyment  in  obtaining  the  present 
mere  material  necessities,  and  to  provide  for  repose  in  the  decline  of 
life.  The  bounding  and  generous  ideality  of  youth  is  frowned  down. 
The  earnest  desire  for  wisdom  and  understanding  of  manhood's  prime 
is  frozen  in  the  bud,  that  no  exalted  idea  may  interfere  in  the  en- 
deavor to  obtain  an  imaginary  and  uncertain  repose  in  after  hfe  —  a 
period  at  which  man,  whose  mind  has  been  devoted  to  mere  pecuniary 
gain,  is  past  usefulness  to  God,  the  world  or  himself. 

The  principles  of  Hfe  which  I  advance  will,  if  acted  upon,  totally 
and  absolutely  reverse  much  that  now  holds,  and  ensure  a  degree  of 
easiness  in  all  hfe's  pursuits,  that  will  warrant  the  discovery  and  appli- 
cation of  many  Laws  of  Nature  to  man's  well-being,  now  perfectly 
unknown. 

The  material  advantages  which  will   follow  the  application  of  this 


yi,     '  .  .    PREFACE. 

Law,  are  really  wonderful  as  compared  with  wretched  darkness  and 
universal  disappointment  in  the  system  of  Credit  and  Credit  Money. 
Herein  I  foresee  the  obstacle  to  a  ready  appreciation  of  my  enuncia- 
tions in  the  present  Essay,  because  Man,  before  he  can  see  Truth, 
must  divest  himself  of  Error. 

Truth  requires  to  be  examined  philosophically  and  not  by  compari- 
son with,  or  reference  to,  a  present  condition  of  things,  based  on  false 
data.  Almost  all  mankind  are  the  slaves  of  rules,  systems,  ideas, 
which  they  have  never  examined;  and  yet  if  a  truth  is  advanced,  they 
immediately  fall  back  upon  these  stereotyped  conceptions,  of  which 
they  really  know  nothing,  as  a  reason  why  they  should  earnestly 
oppose  any  new  thought  advanced,  and  which  new  thought,  if  it  is  a 
great  Truth,  they  never  will  understand,  unless  they  can  first  divest 
themselves  of  an  adherence  to  false  laws  now  holding  them  in  abject 
bondage  and  ignorance. 

It  was  Lord  Bacon  that  said,  "Read  not  to  believe,  nor  to  contra- 
dict, but  to  weigh  and  consider." 

WM.  A.  THOMSON. 
FoBT  Erie,  Canada,  February,  1863. 


Declaration. 


The  natural  method  of  producing  money,  is  for  banks 
and  individuals  to  pay  gold,  which  is  the  "measure  of 
money,"  into  a  Government  "  Bureau  of  Production,"  at  the 
current  price,  which  shall  be  issued  instantly,  by  the  Gov- 
ernment, in  ounce  pieces,  in  discharging  the  present  ex- 
penses of  governing  the  nation. 

The  depositors  will  receive  "acknowledgments,"  in  con- 
venient amounts,  from  one  dollar  and  upwards,  which  shall 
become  "evidences"  of  money,  and  retain  value  through  all 
time,  within  the  duration  of  the  productive  capacity  of  the 
nation,  and  will  be  iriiedeemable  and  a  legal  tender. 

The  application  of  the  gold  by  the  Government  will 
indoctrinate  this  money  in  all  property  within  the  nation, 
making  it  intrinsically  and  permanently  valuable  ;  and  the 
products  of  the  system  will  be  as  follows : 

1st,  A  full  money,  equal  to  moving  the  greatest  produc- 
ing capacity  of  the  nation;  and  which  can  never  fluctuate 
in  value. 

2d.  Production  will  then  ci^eate  demand,  when  over-pro- 
duction will  be  impossible,  and  every  thing  produced  will 
instantly  find  a  ready  money  sale. 

3d.  Taxation  and  Tariffs  will  cease  at  once,  as  unneces- 
sary and  pernicious. 


8  AN  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION,   Etc. 

4th.  Debtor  and  Creditor  will  be .  obsolete  terms,  after 
ten  years. 

5th.  All  products  will  be  much  cheaper,  and  fixed  pro- 
perties having  a  producing  power  will  be  more  valuable. 

6th.  Within  ten  years  the  debts  of  all  governments 
will  have  been  paid,  without  taxation  or  tariffs,  in  gold ; 
no  matter  how  great  such  national  debts  may  be. 

7th.  In  ten  years  after  this  system  has  been  at  work, 
t^ovEUTY  will  be  unknown,  unless  accompanied  by  incurable 
vice,  or  physical  incapacity. 

8th.  Happiness  and  intellectual  activity  will  replace  dis- 
content and  ignorance. 

9th.  Men  will  work  longer,  live  longer,  and  die  better. 

10th.  Individuality  will  be  ensured  to  the  individual, 
without  which  condition  there  is  no  thought  growth.  There 
is  not  a  "  free  man "  in  a  credit  country,  or  where  the 
spiritual  man  is  subject  to  "material"  obligations. 

11th.  The  government,  without  taxation  or  tariffs,  will 
possess  gold  to  pay  the  expenses  of  itself,  and,  also,  the 
expenses  of  a  national  character  of  the  minor  municipahties 
always. 

12th.  Mankind,  as  compared  with  present  progress,  will 
in  twenty  years  be  advanced  centuries  on  the  highway  of 
intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual  growth,  and  of  human  hap- 
piness and  comfort. 

13th.  After  ten  years,  the  supply  and  demand  of  money 
being  then  equal,  and  by  this  law  to  remain  so,  money  can 
never  thereafter  be  an  article  of  profit  in  itself;  it  will  be 
a  "motor"  of  production  of  material  substances,  out  of 
which,  only,  will  profit  arise.  It  will  also  be  the  exchanger 
of  products. 


Argument, 


Were  crude  physical  labor,  without  mind  power,  the  only 
means  of  production,  every  thing  would  be  for  local  supply, 
and  no  more  being  in  demand,  barter, would  meet  the  lim- 
ited condition.  In  this  state  of  society  man  could  never 
rise  to  moral  intellectuahty. 

It  is  coeval  with  the  national  formation,  that  the  mind 
begins  to  dawn,  as  a  power,  in  the  world's  economy,  in- 
stantly comprehending  the  requirement  for  system  in  pro- 
duction and  government;  perceiving  that  productions  were 
valueless  without  protection,  and  feeling,  that  out  of  unas- 
sisted physical  labor,  the  expense  of  governing  would  crush 
the  desired  advancement.  And  thus,  the  Intellectual,  grow- 
ing slowly,  through  many  ages,  has  been  drawing  onwards 
to  a  condition  of  harmony  with  Natural  Law  in  the  pro- 
duction of  material  svbstam/^ee. 

Properties  would  be  valueless  in  a  savage  condition  of 
Hfe,  which  under  civilized  nationahty  are  wealth :  that  only 
being  wealth  which  h^s  Within  itself  a  productive  quahty, 
and  as  it  produces,  the.  national  condition  can  only  be 
obtained  by  the  acquiescence,  in  matters  of  general  import, 
of  the  whole  people,  forming,  or  intending  to  form,  a  nation. 
If  a  nation  is  thrown  back  into  anarchy,  or  barbarism,  the 


10  AN  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

value  departs  from  its  properties,  for,  production  ceasing, 
there  could,  be  no  wealth. 

Thus,  it  is  apparent,  that  every  thing  of  a  national  char- 
acter depends,  for  its  continued  value,  on  the  wholesome 
working  and  preservation  of  the  national  system.  And,  as 
national  compact  is  a  natural  law,  then,  every  thing  that 
can  permanently  strengthen  and  solidify  the  same,  should 
possess  the  attributes  of  eternal  justice,  benevolence  and 
truth.  Credit,  which  is  the  present  great  co- motor  to  the 
mind  (and,  therefore,  while  it  holds  sway,  lies  at  the  root 
of  the  first  principle  of  national  formation,  which  is  the 
production  of  material  substances;  out  of  which  production, 
relatively,  if .  unshackled,  there  would  follow  intellectual, 
moral  and  spiritual  growth),  has  the  very  contrary  of 
these  attributes,  for  its  characteristics  are  injustice,  cruelty 
and  fraud;  and  its  fruits  are  moral  degradation  and  na- 
tional decay. 

There  becomes,  therefore,  an  imperative  necessity  for  a 
natural  money,  to  underlie,  and  finally  obliterate  credit, 
Nevertheless,  we  can  not  part  with  the  one  until  we  get 
the  other. 

Property  outside  of  Nation  being  valueless,  which  in- 
side is  valuable,  the .  means  of  making  it  more  and  more  val- 
uable is  in  increasing  its  productive  capacity,  and  in  giving 
protection  to  property  and  person.  Now,  if  this  protection 
were  given,  without  taking  any  "value"  fi-om  the  citizen, 
would  it  not  be  reasonable  to  admit,  that  whoever  paid 
the  needful  values  for  such  governmental  security  and  pro- 
tection, thus  leaving  all  the  "means"  of  the  citizen  with 
himself,  to  create  further  production  (not  otherwise  possi- 
ble to  such  an  extent),  should  have  an  interest  in  all  the 
properties  of  the  nation,  to  the  amount  of  his  advances? 


MONEY  AND    GOVERNMENT.  H 

And,  if  these  advances  (made  from  year  to  year  for  ever) 
were  not  repayable,  were  not  a  loan,  nor  to  be  in  any 
way  a  lien,  either  for  principal  or  interest,  upon  the  pro- 
perty of  the  nation,  would  it  not  be  right  to  say,  that  the 
party  making  these  advances  held  an  equitable  ownership, 
and  should  possess  a  transferable  "acknowledgment,"  rela- 
tive in  amount  with  such  advances,  in  all  the  (now  called) 
assessable  property,  acquired,  or  to  be  acquired,  by  the 
citizen  ? 

This  condition  of  affairs  would  only  be  just  and  philo- 
sophical, if  it  were  beneficial  and  profitable.  Thus,  it  would 
require  that  such  advances  should  greatly  increase  the  gen- 
eral value  of  fixed  properties,  and  also  the  ability  of  the 
citizen,  to  further  increase  their  productive  power;  while  at 
the  same  time  there  was  full  assurance  of  protection  of  gov- 
ernment, in  person  and  property. 

It  is  through  just  such  a  process,  foreshadowing  such 
results,  that  I  elsewhere  show  how,  in  strict  accordance 
with  the  requirements  of  human  society  and  progress,  and 
of  natural  law,  a  true  money  can  be  obtained. 


The  Law. 


The  desideratum  in  the  matter  of  money,  is  to  provide 
for  an  ample  circulation,  free  from  fluctuation,  and  always 
equal  in  amount  to  the  fullest  natural  demand  of  produc- 
tion, in  material  substances. 

From  the  want  of  a  knowledge  of  the  law  of  money, 
as  intended  by  nature,  all  the  accumulations  of  the  produc- 
tion of  labor,  in  material  substances,  are  resolved  into  fixed 
properties.  A  i/rue  money  is  requisite,  to  combine  the 
varied  powers  of  mankind,  mentally  and  physically,  to  en- 
sure a  frill  and  multiplied  production,  out  of  fixed  proper- 
ties. The  process  of  credit,  which  has  emanated  out  of 
man's  ignorance  and  necessities,  has  come  to  a  "dead-lock," 
swallowed  up  in  the  vastness  of  the  fixed  properties,  which 
it  has  aided  in  producing ;  and  which  fixed  properties  are 
descending  in  the  scale  of  true  productive  value  (which  is 
the  value  of  all  property — property  having  within  itself  a 
productive  capacity,  being  the  only  wealth),  by  the  inca- 
pacity of  the  moral,  man,  to  increase  credit  co-equally  with 
the  requirements  of  increased  properties. 

All  that  is  now  called  money,  u  not  money^  not  even 
gold  and  silver;  but  all  paper  "promises  to  pay,"  called 
money,  are  a  mere  credit,  and  the  gold  and  silver,  instead 


14  AN  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

of  being  used  as  a  "measure  of  money,"  are  degraded,  as 
a  basis  for  the  support  of  credit. 

I  proceed  to  propound  the  law  of  money,  as  evidenced 
in  the  past  and  present  history  of  man's  necessities,  in  his 
primary  field  of  labor,  in  material  substances,  And  I  am 
impelled  to  this  utterance  of  the  "truth  within,"  by  the 
conception  that  all  ^  mankind's  intellectual  and  moral 
growth,  all  of  present  happiness  or  misery,  all  of  human 
woe,  beggary  and  vice,  or  of  virtue,  comfort  and  goodness, 
will  be  RELATIVE  with  the  possession  of  true  or  false  laws, 
governing  the  fundamental  laboratory  of  man's  existence, 
the  production  of  material  substances. 

The  atmosphere,  by  co-creation,  is  in  affinity  with  the 
earth.  "Money"  should  likewise  be  in  harmony  with  fixed 
properties,  by  both  coming  out  of  the  net  profits  already 
earned ;  thereby  giving  the  same  surety .  of  result  to  the 
work  of  the  "mind  motor,"  that  the  atmosphere  secures  to 
the  decree  of  the  God  of  nature,  in  reproduction  on  the 
earth.  And,  as  the  atmosphere  can  only  return  upon  the 
ea.rth  by  virtue  of  common  affinities,  resulting  from  co-pro- 
duction, so  a  true  money  and  fixed  properties  should  come 
out  of  the  same  crucible  of  net  profits  already  earned;  that 
both  being  the  products  of  labor  in  material  substances, 
may  naturally  re-affiliate  with  each  other  in  their  separate 
characters  of  floating  and  fixed  properties,  causing  ceaseless 
multiplication  of  production. 

Money  is  an  invisible  substance,  represented  by  some 
visible  sign,  be  it  paper  or  metal.  Such  signs  are  not 
themselves  money,  but  the  "evidences"  thereof.  Human 
law  is  required  to  regulate  the  "  evidences,"  but  the  law 
of  nature  ordains  the  money. 

The  Ji/rst  purpose  of  money  is  as  a  co-motor,  subordi- 


MONET  AND    GOVERNMENT.  15 

nate  to  the  mind  of  man,  which  is  the  prime  motor,  in 
bringing  the  varied  powers  and  faculties  of  mankind  to 
bear  in  national  compact,  to  the  greatest  possible  advantage 
upon  material  productions. 

The  second  purpose  of  money,  is  to  exchange  the  pro- 
ducts of  industry  and  to  socialize  all  the  nations  into  one, 
in  the  Eye  of  the  Universe.  Therefore,  a  true  money  of 
any  nation  will  be  esteemed  permanently  valuable,  and  its 
paper  "e\adences"  will  pass  current,  the  world  over. 

The  natural  boundary  of  a  nation  is  in  its  industrial 
economy,  and  in  the  equahty  of  its  parts  in  harmoniziDg 
with  a  common  centre.  Under  the  true  law  of  production 
and  its  money,  countries  will  sooner  or  later  come  together 
to  make  one  nation,  or  separate  to  make  two  nations, 
as  they  are  now  naturally,  or  unnaturally  joined,  or  dis- 
joined. 

Out  of  the  instinct  of  nature,  individuals  have  been  re- 
solved into  nations  of  mankind,  whence  a  governmental 
necessity  at  once  presented  itself  to  protect  one  from  the 
other;  to  secure  the  fruits  of  production  to  the  producer, 
and  to  preserve  the  national  compact  against  the  aggres- 
sion of  all  other  nations.  This  again  created  a  demand 
for  services,  or  something  to  pay  services  of  government; 
and,  clearly  all  must  contribute,  directly  or  indirectly,  to- 
wards this  object;  and  herein  arose  taxation.  Even  tax- 
ation, as  the  world  increased,  could  not  be  paid  in  material 
substances,  and  thus,  at  the  present  day,  men  have  first 
to  work  unaided  to  gain  possession,  expensively,  of  "evi- 
dences of  credit"  called  money,  and  when  they  have  earned 
it,  the  government  wants  are  the  first  to  be  supplied. 
And  thus,  this  sham  money,, which  would  have  trebled  it- 
self as  a  mot<yr  in  a  year,  if  left  in  the  hands  of  the  pro- 


16  AN  ESSAY  ON   PRODUCTION, 

ducer,  has  gone  into  the  hands  of  the  government  where 
it  will  make  no  production  of  material  substances. 

No  matural  law  impoverishes.  All  natural  laws  are 
beneficent  and  productive.  Taxation,  poverty,  vice  and 
misery  are  clearly  related.  The  eternal  justice  ignores 
them  all. 

We  have  under  natural  destiny  formed  nations,  and  in- 
stantly government,  with  its  expenses,  follows;  and  as 
soon  as  industry  takes  root,  we  discover  the  necessity  for 
a  money,  to  harmonize  the  combined  individual  functions 
into  national  power,  in  economizing  and  increasing  produc- 
tive capacity. 

Nation,  government,  production,  are  no  more  intimately 
related  than  the  expenses  of  governing,  and  the  money 
"motor"  of  production  in  material  substances.  A  natural 
relation  binds  them  all. 

As  the  world  now  appears,  there  is  no  avenue  by 
which  any  portion  of  the  net  profits  of  production  in  material 
substances  can  be  made  into  money !  So  all  net  profits  must 
go  into  fixed  properties,  such  as  farms,  machinery,  mines, 
houses;  and  they,  in  turn,  become  the  basis  of  a  credit  to 
move  themselves.  One  law  makes  fixed  properties,  and 
another  makes  the  present  money  (?).  They  are  thoroughly 
antagonistic  to  each  other,  and  the  result  is,  partially 
valueless  properties,  dear  products  and  down-trodden  hu- 
manity. The  present  money  never  moves  production,  it 
only  exchanges  products. 

Credit  is  a  base  money,  and  is,  thus  far,  within  natural 
law,  otherwise  it  could  not  be  even  temporarily  operative. 

To  institute  a  true  money,  and  to  displace  credit,  gold 
must  cease  as  the  basis  of  the  present  credit  system  of 
bank    notes,    and    be    estabhshed   as    the   "measure"    of 


MONET  AND    GOVERNMENT.  17 

"money."    Whenever  the  net  profits  in  the  production  of 
material  substances  earn  gold,  authorize  it  to  be  lodged  in. 
a  bureau  of  production  of  the   nation,  and  an  "acknowl-.^ 
edgment"  or  "acknowledgments,"  to  be  a  legal  tender  and,, 
irredeemable,  be  granted  in  return  by  the  said  bureau. 

The  Gold  thus  lodged  in  the  bureau  of  production  by 
banks  or  individuals,  as  often  as  they  wanted  paper  "evi- 
dences" of  money,  the  government  shall  stamp  in  ounce 
pieces,  and  issue  in  payment  of  daily  expenses  of  govern- 
ing the  nation,  and  in  paying  government  debts  where  ^ 
any  exist. 

The   net   profits,   in   the    production    of   material   sub- 
stances, will  never  fail  to  earn  as  much  gold  as  there  will 
be  money  motor  wanted,  to  vitafize  all  the  fixed  proper-,  ^ 
ties  to  be  moved,  to  fiirther  production. 

The  Acknowledgments  granted  for  the  gold  lodged  in, 
the  bureau  of  production,  will  become  "  evidences  of  mon- 
ey" from  the  apphcation  of  the  gold,  through  the  mediun^^, 
of  the  government,  in  the  defiraying  the   expenses  of  thorv 
nsition,  and    in  rendering  taxation,   tariffs,  and    all  other 
imposts,  for  ever  unnecessary. 

The  Gold  received  by  the  bureau  of  production  becomes., 
thoroughly  indoctrinated  in  the   properties   of  the   nation, 
by  thus   paying  aU  the   expenses   thereof.     And  the  ac- 
knowledgments  are  thereby  resolved  into  "evidences"  of 
an  imperishable  and  unfluctuating  money. 

A  Money!  Implanted  in  all  the  properties  of  the  na- 
tion, because  the  vitality  and  value  of  fixed  properties^^ 
(productive  capacity  being  the  only  test  of  value)  will  rest 
on  the  continued  existence,  usefuhaess  and  quantity  of  the 
"  evidences  "  as  a  "  motor  of  production ; "  while .  the  mon- 
ey will   equally  depend  upon  the  productive  value  of  the 


18  Aif  ESSAY  ON  production; 

fixed  properties  for  its  character  and  quantity;  and  both 
on  the  perpetuation  of  the  national  compact.  The  one  val- 
ueless without  the  other,  and  naturally  intended  to  be  co- 
existent and  equal  in  duration. 

It  will  be  required  of  the  government,  that  the  gold 
which  the  bureau  of  production  receives,  and  melts  into 
one -ounce  pieces  at  the  mint,  with  the  stamp  of  purity 
and  date  thereon,  be  paid  out  without  delay,  from  the 
various  disbursing  stations,  in  payment  of  governmental 
debts  and  expenses.  And  if  the  receipts  are  more  than  the 
chief  government  requires,  that  the  minor  municipalities, 
according  to  census,  shall  receive  monthly  proportions  of 
such  surplus.  First,  that  simultaneously  with  the  issuing 
of  "evidences"  of  money  against  it,  the  gold  shall  go  at 
once  where  it  will  fulfill  the  duty  which  gives  the  endur- 
ing value,  within  the  national  existence,  to  the  money, 
namely :  to  the  paj^ment  of  government  services  in  behalf 
of  the  property  and  person  of  the  citizen.  Secondly,  that 
the  government  may  obtain  the  value  of  the  day,  for  the 
gold,  at  which  it  was  taken.  And,  thirdly,  because,  under 
unshackled  production,  every  thing  is  in  activity,  and  the 
gold,  being  the  "measure  of  money,"  should  be  where  it 
can  be  instantly  reearned,  by  the  ever-recurring  net  profits 
of  production  in  material  substances. 

Gold,  or  any  other  substance  of  material  value,  can  not 
be  even  an  evidence  of  money,  because  it  would  then 
have  two  natures  in  conflict.  It  would  fluctuate  as  a 
merchantable  value;  and  it  could  not  possibly  pay  the  ex- 
penses (and  prevent  taxation)  of  the  nation,  and  circulate 
as  an  "evidence"  of  money.  For  how  could  the  govern- 
ment get  it  to  perform  the  double  transaction  which  the 
creation  of  a  natural  money  does? 


MONEY  AND    GOVERNMENT.  19 

A  true  "evidence"  of  money — money  being  invisible, 
and  yet  positively  valuable  —  requires  to  be  in  itself  val- 
udess.  Paper  answers  that  purpose,  and  can  carry  its  his- 
tory and  origin  on  its  face  to  the  conscience  and  under- 
standing of  the  world. 

Bankers,  with  commissions  on  the  footings  of  accounts 
for  their  remuneration,  will  be  the  natural  Hnk  between 
the  bureau  of  production  (which  I  propose  that  every  gov- 
ernment shall  estabhsh)  and  the  earners  and  owners  of  the 
net  profits  of  material  substances. 

All  gold  will  continually  revert  to  the  banks ;  it  can  not 
stay  in  circulation  where  a  true  money  exists.  The  gold 
will  reach  the  banks  through  depositors;  and  when  de- 
positors draw  checks  against  their  accounts,  paper  money 
will  be  wanted;  the  banker's  duty,  therefore,  will  require 
his  having  a  supply  of  such  money  on  hand,  and  thus  the 
gold  must  be  sent  in  constantly  to  the  bureau  of  production 
for  the  obtaining  of  what  we  now  call  "currency,"  but 
which  in  this  case  will  be  real  money.  And  real,  be- 
cause of  the  appHcation  of  the  gold,  through  the  govern- 
ment, to  the  defraying  of  the  expenses  of  the  nation,  and 
thereby  obliterating  taxation,  tariffs  and  every  other  drain 
now  made  upon  industry. 

Until  the  "relative"  in  supply  and  demand,  between 
money  and  properties,  under  this  law,  is  first  established, 
there  being  notv  no  money,  and  all  "  properties,"  the  great- 
est proportion  of  net  profits  will  flow  into  money,  gradually 
displacing  all  credits  and  false  money;  thus  an  amount 
of  money,  equal  to  about  one-half  of  the  present  produc- 
tive properties  of  a  nation,  will  be  created,  and  hence  an 
equal  sum  in  gold  will  be  paid,  through  the  bureau  of  pro- 
duction, within  a  cycle  of  about  ten  years.     And  as  some 


20  ^^  ESSAY  0*N  PBODUGTIOJSr, 

fixed  properties  must  be  added,  by  the  nature  of  industry, 
within  the  said  ten  years,  an  amount,  equal  to  about  the 
half  of  said  additional  fixed  properties,  will  also  be  wanted 
in  money,  further  increasing  the  gold  paid  into  the  bureau. 
When  the  equilibrium  has  arrived  between  money  and 
properties,  after  a  period  of  ten  years,  and  all  national 
debts  have  then  been  paid  off,  as  they  will  be  through 
natural  consequence,  it  will  happen,  from  that  forward,  that 
the  additional  money  annually  wanted  to  move  the  addi- 
tional fixed  properties,  annually  created,  will  flow  evenly, 
governed  by  an  eternal  law,  which  invariably  regulates  the 
"fitness  of  things."  And  the  gold  thus  annually  paid  into 
the  bureau  of  production  will  be  found  equal  to  meeting, 
thereafter,  all  the  annual  charges  of  the  nation,  and  of 
such  expenses  of  the  minor  municipalities  as  are  of  a 
national   character. 

I  discover  a  "relative"  in  natural  law,  between  the  ad- 
ditional money  wanted  annually  by  unshackled  production 
(after  supply  and  demand  are  once  equal,  at  the  end  of  ten 
years)  to  meet  the  additional  fixed  properties  annually  earned, 
and  the  quantity  of  gold  needed  to  defray  all  national  gov- 
erning. 

I  repeat,  these  "acknowledgments,"  by  the  application 
of  the  gold,  becoming  "  evidences "  of  money  (money  being 
itself  invisible),  are  irredeemable  and  a  legal  tender,  having 
no  redemption,  because  paid  for  when  obtained,  thus  repre- 
senting profits  previously  earned.  A  thing  to  be  redeemed, 
apparently,  requires  something  more  valuable  than  itself. 
But  true  money,  indoctrinated  in  all  the  property  of  the 
nation,  and  having  vitality,  through  the  productiveness 
which  it  aids  in  creating,  and  being,  under  unshackled  pro- 
duction, the  only  invariable  value,  can  find  nothing  in  ex- 


MONET  AJ^D   GVVEBNMJENT.  21 

istence,  of  ample  value,  in  sufficient  quantity  to  exchange 
it.  Certainly,  neither  gold  nor  silver  can  meet  the  case, 
they  being  limited  in  quantity,  and  fluctuating,  merchant- 
able substances. 

No  accumulation  of  gold,  by  the  government,  will  be 
justifiable;  for,  gold  being  the  "measure  of  money,"  it  is 
important  that  all  of  the  "measure"  shall  be  continually 
within  the  reach  of  the  acquiring  power  of  the  net  profits 
of  production,  in  material  substances.  Nor,  are  the  "ac- 
knowledgments" granted,  truly  "evidences"  of  money,  until 
the  application  of  the  gold  is  made;  for,  gold  in  govern- 
ment vaults  would  be  mere  merchandise,  and  thus  the 
"acknowledgments"  would  only  be  "evidences"  of  mer- 
chandise, and  not  of  money. 

No  superabundance,  however,  of  gold  ounces,  in  circu- 
lation or  in  bank  vaults,  will  ever  over-increase  the  paper 
"acknowledgments;"  for,  although  all  the  gold  will  be 
earned,  over  and  over  again,  and  placed  in  bank  deposit 
by  "  net  profits "  of  production,  in  material  substances,  yet, 
only  so  much  gold  will  pass  into  the  Bureau  of  Production 
as  there  are  "acknowledgments"  needed  by  the  demand 
of  fixed  properties,  within  their  producing  ability. 

The  intelligent  mind,  which  carefully  studies  this  sub- 
ject, will  discover,  under  the  machinery  of  this  money 
creation,  that  production,  net  profits,  additional  money, 
increased  fixed  properties  (wealth),  can  not  avoid  growing 
"relatively."  And  with  unshackled  industry,  which  will 
then  hold,  that  it  will  be  impossible  to  disproportion  any 
thing. 

The  lodgments  of  gold  with  the  bureau  of  production 
w^m  not  decrease  the  power  of  continually  lodging  more; 
every  ounce  paid  in  being  immediately  issued  by  the  Gov- 


22  ^N  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

ernraent,  and  re-obtained  by  the  banks,  who  will  keep 
sending  it  in  to  the  bureau  just  as  often  as  they  have 
occasion  for  paper  evidences  of  money,  to  meet,  through 
their  customers,  the  demand  in  the  production  of  material 
substances.  And  it  will  be  unprofitable  to  send  it  in 
faster  than  paper  money  is  needed,  as  gold,  in  superabund- 
ance, in  a  nation,  can  be  exported  to  a  probable  profit; 
but  money  having  no  productive  or  material  value  within 
itself,  and  not  being  an  article  of  merchandise,  consequently 
bearing  no  profit,  will  be,  in  surplus,  totally  valueless  as 
an  investment. 

The  money  under  this  law  will  never  fluctuate  in  value  — 
it  will  rule  all  values.  The  degree  of  value  in  all  fixed 
producing  properties  of  the  nation  will  depend  upon  the 
relative  amount  of  money  afloat.  When  supply  and  de- 
mand are  equal,  then  property  will  be  at  its  highest  degree 
of  productive  capacity,  and  consequently  of  standard  value. 
And  under  a  true  law  creating  unshackled  production,  the 
amount  of  money  can  never  be  in  excess;  because  the  gold 
has  to  be  earned  before  the  money  can  be  created,  and  the 
money  must  be  required  before  gold  will  be  given  for  it. 

A  natural  law  regulates  itself,  and  it  is  no  true  law 
which  needs  human  weakness  to  say :  "  Thus  far  shalt 
thou  go,  and  no  farther."  Once  industry  is  unshackled, 
by  the  enunciation  of  a  true  money,  so  that  production 
forthwith  creates  demand — when  over-production  wifl  be  an 
impossibihty,  and  when  every  thing  produced  will  find  a 
ready  sale  for  money — then  the  declaration  of  the  French 
economist,  M.  Say,  will  be  applicable :  wherein  all  that 
a  government  has  to  do  with  national  industry  and  its 
money,  and  with  Domestic  or  Foreign  Commerce,  is  "  to 
certify  a  fact  and  to  prevent  a  fraud." 


MONET  AND    OOVERNMENT.  -23 

Money  is  to  fixed  properties  as  the  atmosphere  is  to 
the  earth.  As  the  air  is  to  the  lungs.  An  invisible 
substance  to  a  material  substance.  Atmosphere  is  just  as 
real  as  Earth.  True  money  is  just  as  real  as  machinery, 
or  farms,  or  food.  Money  is  the  floating  element  of  fixed 
capital  in  material  substances. 

Tliere  is  no  money  now  in  existmce.  Real  money 
is  incompressible  by  legislation  or  otherwise.  A  stunted 
metal  circulation  may  be  a  safe  medium  of  exchange  in 
countries  where  there  are  no  paper  notes,  but  still  it  is 
not  money.  And  where  bank  notes,  or  government  credit 
issues,  are  in  force,  then  all  is  credit,  even  gold  and  silver; 
the  one  being  a  mere  sustainer  of  the  other. 

Credit  crushes,  debt  destroys;  whilst  production,  aided 
by  a  NATURAL  MONEY,  will  expand  the  natural  powers  of 
the  whole  man,  swelling  general  wealth,  human  happiness 
and  intellectual  capacity  many  hundred-fold. 

The  net  profits  in  production  of  material  substances 
are  only  obtained  after  deducting  the  consumption  of  all 
the  people  of  the  nation,  productive  and  non-productive. 
It  is  these  net  profits  which  now  all  go  into  additional 
fixed  properties,  that  would  partly  go  into  irredeemable 
money,  if  a  money  channel  existed. 

There  are  no  additions  to  wealth  in  the  world,  except 
by  the  net  profits  of  production  in  material  substances,  and 
yet  this  production  supports  all  before  net  profits  are  ascer- 
tained. This  being  so,  the  great  act  now  required  in  the 
onward  drama  of  life,  is  to  iinshacUe  this  great  element  of 
productive  wealth;  and  just  as  the  productive  power  in- 
creases, so  much  and  no  more  does  every  other  branch  of 
human  life  advance.  And  it  may  be  said,  that  '^relatively" 
with  the  productive  capacity  of  a  people,  will  ever  be  their 


24  ^^  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

intellectual^  moral  and  spiritual  growth.  It  is  therefore 
presumable  that  man's  present  degree  of  wisdom  and  un- 
derstanding is  very  far  below  par. 

Unshackle  production  in  material  substances,  which  can 
only  be  gained  by  developing  a  natural,  and,  consequently, 
true  money,  and  you  will  have  advanced  mankind,  by 
many  centuries,  toward  grander  thoughts  and  greater  hap- 
piness. 

Although  the  paper  "acknowledgments,"  or  evidences  of 
money,  under  the  law  now  proposed,  will  never  depreciate 
or  fluctuate  in  value,  and  we  have  an  estabhshed  line  of 
values  of  all  things  now  existing  to  commence  upon;  yet 
gold,  taken  by  the  bureau  of  production  to-day  at  $17 
per  ounce,  and  issued  in  payment  of  government  expenses 
at  the  same  rate,  may  afterwards  fall  to  $15  or  $10,  or 
rise  to  $20  or  $25  per  ounce.  This  will  make  no  dif- 
ference to  any  one,  for  it  will  only  rise  and  fall  as  a 
merchantable  commodity,  measured  by  the  true  money  in 
existence ;  although  becoming  the  measure  itself  of  further 
money,  at  the  reduced  or  increased  price  which  true  money 
will  rule  it  at  in  the  market  of  the  day.  The  bureau  of 
production  will,  on  the  price  of  the  day,  give  "acknowledg- 
ments" for  gold  without  any  reference  to  what  it  had  been 
taken  in  or  paid  out  at,  previously.  The  Government,  in 
paying  out  gold  in  ounces,  will  stamp  no  value  on  the 
same;  the  current  value  will  be  known  to  giver  and  re- 
ceiver, and  as  Grovernment  will  not  retain  gold  on  hand, 
the  nation  will  be  sure  to  receive  value,  in  services,  equal  to 
the  face  of  the  acknowledgments  granted. 

Under  a  natural  money,  with  all  the  cost  of  credit 
abolished,  all  products  will  be  greatly  reduced  in  the  cost 
of  production,  and  greatly  increased   in   quantity — demand 


MONEY  AND   GOVERNMENT.  25 

will  be  (exactly)  equally  increased  —  and  gold  will  rule 
relatively  in  its  cheapness  and  increase  of  production,  but 
will  have  no  effect  on  a  true  natural  money,  which  is  itself 
intrinsically  valuable,   rules  all  and  never  varies. 

I  have  said  that  the  first  purpose  of  money  is,  as  a 
co-motor  to  the  mind  of  man,  which  is  the  chief  motor  in 
the  production  of  material  substances.  Therefore,  man  had 
already,  without  the  aid  of  money,  made  some  crude  strides 
in  production,  otherwise  there  never  could  have  origi- 
nated "a  money."  But,  with  the  first  excess  of  produc- 
tion over  consumption,  the  initiation  of  a  mone^^  was  pos- 
sible, and  in  nature  necessary. 

If  the  creation  of  what  we  call  wealth  is  a  natural  law, 
— and  that  it  is  a  natural  law  is  evident  from  the  fact  that 
in  the  production  of  material  substances,  and  as  the  capacity 
of  production  increases,  so  does  the  moral  and  intellectual 
being  called  man  relatively  develop  himself  in  the  appreci- 
ation of  human  happiness  and  in  the  service  of  the  uni- 
verse,— therefore,  the  knowledge  of  what  money  really  is, 
and  how  to  apply  it,  is  a  prime  necessity. 

The  mind  of  man  can  not  act  outside  of  natural  law, 
yet  it  is  the  decree  of  destiny  that  he  must  work  out  all 
truths  for  himself  by  the  exercise  of  the  functions  of  mind 
implanted  within  him.  The  spirit  of  truth,  although  always 
within  us,  succumbs  to  error,  and  will  apparently  lie  dor- 
mant for  ages,  unless  the  individual  man,  in  a  happy  mo- 
ment, sees  error  in  its  deformity  and  calls  upon  Truth 
to  awake.  Meantime  our  vital  necessities,  bhndly  knocking 
at  the  door  of  natural  law,  succeed  in  creating  systems, 
which,  though  erroneous,  are  yet  within  natural  law,  else 
such  systems  would  be  impossibiHties.  Nevertheless,  false 
conceptions,  however  long  they  may  last  in  action,  ensure 
present  misfortune  and  ultimate  destruction. 


26  ^-^  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

Money  is  now  a  thing  of  profit,  and  yet  of  itself  pro- 
duces nothing.  No  producer  can  obtain  it  until  he  has 
long  labored  without  its  aid  in  acquiring  capital  and  credit, 
and  then,  and  only  then,  can  he  borrow  it  in  limited 
quantity  and  at  a  large  profit  to  the  lender;  and  it  is  only 
as  a  temporary  motor  that  he  can  then  rely  upon  it.  No 
production  can  be  cheap  and  very  advancing  with  such  a 
trammel;  and  thus  we  find  that  the  rule  of  life  is,  that  the 
majority  fail  in  obtaining  competence  or  happiness,  and  that 
a  vast  percentage  of  mankind  sink  into  beggary  and  des- 
olation. 

Money,  not  first  earned  in  the  workshop  or  on  the 
farm,  only  gets  there  in  paying  for  something  produced 
without  the  aid  of  money.  What  millions  fail  to  reach  a 
first  loan!  lost  to  themselves,  to  the  world  and  to  God's 
service.  And  this  is  the  action  of  what  is  now  called 
money.  It  is  apparent  that  all  production  is  now  the  effect 
of  the  mind  motor  and  social  credit,  and  that  what  is  now 
called  money  is  the  agent  of  commerce,  in  being  a  mere 
exclianger  of  products  after  they  are  produced,  and  never 
the  co-motor  of  production. 

Thus,  if  on  any  occasion  such  money  is  rapidly  in- 
creased, it  adds  but  little  to  the  productive  power,  simply 
increasing  the  exchanging  ability.  This  surplus  of  ex- 
changing medium,  without  corresponding  production,  will 
immediately  raise  the  price  of  products.  Then  it  is  that 
production,  seeking  for  credit  to  supply  a  co-motor,  tries  to 
meet  the  apparent  increase  in  demand;  and,  production  being 
wonderful  in  its  power,  and  the  money  issue  under  pres- 
ent system  being,  even  in  excess,  hmited,  production  will 
rapidly  fill  the  market,  overtopping  the  exchanging  medium 
and  ensuring  a   speedy  collapse  and  certain  disaster  to  all. 


MONET  AND    GOVERNMENT.  27 

False  money,  issued  even  by  a  government,  no  matter 
how  large  the  quantity,  can  never  keep  pace  for  any  length 
of  time  ,with  production,  and  all  increased  prq/its,  made 
under  excessive  issues  of  false  money,  can  only  go  into 
fixed  properties,  inasmuch  as  net  profits  must  go  into  some- 
thing not  yet  created.  The  bank  notes,  government  notes, 
gold  and  silver,  are  already  earned  and  owned  by  some- 
body, and  can  not  be  increased  by  changing  hands;  therefore 
the  certainty  of  a  crash,  in  ten-fold  degree,  is  unavoidable, 
because  properties  being  now  too  much  for  all  the  credit 
in  existence,  the  disparity  will  be  greatly  multiplied  by 
the  addition  of  property  from  profits,  while  taxation  increas- 
ing, will  be  reducing  the  motive  power  and  ready  means 
within  the  present  system.  Thus,  when  the  collapse  hap- 
pens, apart  from  the  increase  of  human  wretchedness  that 
will  arise,  there  wall  be  a  depreciation  of  fixed  properties 
just  equal  to  the  amount  of  social  credit  withdrawn ;  and 
in  a  great  nation,  this  will  count  thousands  in  subtraction 
for  the  hundreds  of  additional  wealth  reahzed  under  the 
inflation.  It  being  borne  in  mind  that  fixed  properties  are 
the  only  wealth,  valued  by  what  they  produce,  and  as  they 
produce,  and,  as  the  present  system  makes  demand  cre- 
ate production,  and  the  last  part  of  the  family  to  get  over 
a  collapse  is  the  commercial  credit  giving  branch,  which 
credit  now  moves  demand,  the  great  disaster  and  its  pro- 
longed effects  on  fixed  properties  may  be  comprehended. 

Bank  or  government  notes  not  arising  out  of  net  profits 
of  production,  but  issuing  against  something  yet  to  be 
earned,  do  not  move  (and  they  contract  the  profits)  pro- 
duction. But  the  obtaining  of  the  "  wherewith "  by  pro- 
duction to  pay  a  profit  on  the  bank  notes,  or,  all  the  prin- 
cipal   in   taxation   of   the   government  notes,   reduces   the 


28  ^^  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

productive  capacity  of  a  nation  annually  about  three  times 
the  amount  thus  paid  for  profit  in  the  one  case,  and  for 
principal  in  the  other. 

It  is  a  mistake  that  war  expenditures,  if  confined  to 
the  citizens,  do  not  impoverish  as  much  as  if  to  foreigners. 
As  much  productive  power  is  displaced,  when  the  citizen 
produces  for  the  government  consumption,  as  would  produce 
enough,  or  perhaps  more  than  enough,  in  other  produc- 
tions, to  pay  foreigners  for  the  articles  and  services  wanted 
by  the  government. 

Individual  gain  may  be  at  the  expense  of  other  indi- 
vidual loss.  The  only  gain  to  the  nation  is  in  the  aggre- 
gate net  profits  of  the  whole  people  in  the  production  of 
material  substances.  The  other  branches  of  life's  labor  are 
all  dependencies  and  charges  on  the  production  of  material 
substances,  prospering  only  as  production  prospers. 

A  money  capital,  in  the  production  of  material  substances, 
moves  annually  about  three  times  its  amount;  therefore,  in 
w^ars,  which  are  all  sheer  waste,  the  first  direct  loss  is  treble 
amount  of  the  expenditure;  which,  in  a  great  war  and 
under  a  false  system  of  credit  and  taxation,  may  be  a 
death  blow  to  a  nation,  but  which  under  a  natural  law  of 
money,  would  have  merely  the  effect  of  making,  for  a 
time,  less  fixed  properties  and  more  money.  But  making 
the  existing  properties  produce  more,  and  thereby  increas- 
ing their  value,  equal  to  the  amount  of  additional  net  profits, 
put  into  money,  to  pay  the  war  waste. 

The  amount  of  debt,  in  every  shape,  in  existence,  is 
the  deficiency  in  the  amount  of  money  which  ought  to  be 
in  circulation  to  make  supply  and  demand  equal,  under 
natural  law.  And  nature,  permitting  no  vacuum  to  remain, 
and    debt  being   a  vacuum,  has  so  arranged  the  functions, 


MONEY  AND    GOVERNMENT.  29 

necessities  and  thoughts  of  mankind,  that,  moving  under  a 
natural  law  of  money,  whereby  frodudion  creates  demand^ 
a  national  debt,  however  large,  will,  by  the  instinctive 
creation  of  additional  money,  first  earned  in  the  production 
of  material  substances,  be  discharged  without  Govern- 
ment commands  or  legislative  enactments.  Nor  will  the 
domestic  economy  of  the  people,  under  a  true  money, 
be  affected  by  war,  in  comfort,  happiness  or  progress, 
beyond  the  sorrow  for  life  lost,  and  in  the  amount  of  mind 
motor  and  physical  labor  extinguished. 

I  again  repeat,  that  the  fivBt  principle  in  a  natural 
money,  is  as  a  motor  of  production  in  material  sub- 
stances; and,  I  would  add,  that  there  can  be  no  legitimate 
"exchanger"  of  products  which  has  not  first,  by  aiding  in 
production,  as  a  motor,  been  the  gauge  of  values  in  the 
producing. 

Under  the  present  system,  when  there  is  a  flush  of 
paper  issues  and  credits,  making  active  demand,  there  is 
limited  supply  of  products  to  meet  it;  but  when  by  aid 
of  such  temporary  flush,  production  becomes  active  and  the 
markets  are  filled,  it  is  found  that  the  credit  has  coUapsed 
and  the  paper  issues  are  in  deficiency  and  therefore  no 
sufficiency  of  demand;  thus  high  and  low  prices  alternat- 
ing, and  no  general  profit  in  either  case.  It  is  one  step 
forward  and  another  backward,  always  destructive  to  every 
attempt  of  production  to  work  up  to  its  capacity.  What- 
ever increase  in  material  wealth  goes  forward  under  such  a 
system,  as  compared  to  nothing,  may  seem  considerable, 
but  as  compared  with  what  it  ought  to  be,  is  as  next  to 
nothing. 

The  law  of  money  now  propounded  wiU  enable  produc- 
tion to   mahe  its   own   money.     From   the  small  smithy  to 


80  ^^  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

the  great  manufactory;  from  the  little  garden  to  the  great 
farm;  in  short,  in  every  spot  where  material  production 
makes  profits,  a  portion  will  be  converted  into  mondy; 
not  by  exchanging  for  a  money  now  in  existence,  for  that 
would  not  increase  money,  hit  ly  investing  it  in  additional 
and  7iew  money  obtained  through  the  governmental  require- 
ments of  the  national  compact.  And  the  money  will  be 
exactly  where  it  was  earned,  instantly,  without  expense, 
loss  of  time  or  debt,  ready  to  stimulate  the  additional  fixed 
properties,  simultaneously  developed,  thus  ensuring  un- 
checked multiplication  of  production  at  greatly  reduced  cost, 
with  a  never-failing  demand.  Money  and  production  being 
limited  under  a  natural  law,  where  production  creates  de- 
mand ONLY  by  capacity  of  the  producing  power,  no  mortal 
intervention,  individual  or  governmental,  will  be  admissible 
in  the  law  of  production.  Government  is  merely  a  channel 
through  which  the  "  net  profits "  pass  gold  and  receive 
"acknowledgments,"  which,  from  the  appHcation  of  the 
gold  which  the  government  is  instructed  to  maT^e^  the  con- 
science and  reason  of  the  nation  are  enabled  to  declare  the 
"acknowledgments"  true  "evidences"  of  a  perfect  money, 
co-existent  with  the  productive  capacity  of  the  nation,  and 
as  vital  to  live  out  political  disasters,  as  are  the  properties 
and  the  individuals  within  the  bounds  of  the  nation. 

What  is  now  called  money  is  only  credit,  for  it  is 
predicated  to  be  made  valuable  on  profits  yet  to  he  earned. 
The  money  which  I  advance  is  made  by  the  net  profits 
already  earned.  True  money  being  real  and  intrinsically 
valuable,  needs  no  redemption.  All  credits  are  "promises 
to  pay,"  and  they  must  be  redeemable  in  something  of 
value  and  which  has  yet  to  he  produced. 

Productive   capacity    being    the    measure    of   value   of 


MONEY  AND   GOVERNMENT.  31 

properties,  and  money  being  the  co-motor  in  production, 
the  properties  and  money  would  be  valueless  but  for  each 
other.  Therefore,  money  and  properties  should  grow,  rela- 
tively, in  required  proportions,  for  ever,  within  the  dura- 
tion of  a  nation.  The  same  money  in  existence  to-day, 
without  the  possibility  of  change  or  depreciation,  to  be 
afloat  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  hence.  As  an  ex- 
changer of  products  the  paper  evidences  of  such  a  money 
(money  being  invisible)  will  be  current  the  world  over, 
above  either  gold  or  silver. 

Every  nation  has  within  itself  the  element  of  a  full 
money,  from  its  formation;  All  that  has  been  heretofore 
borrowed  from  one  nation  by  another  has  been  ruinous  to 
both  borrower  and  lender,  for  under  a  true  money  latv  all 
the  money  made  in  a  nation  will  he  required  to  move  fro- 
duction^  out  of  the  net  profits  of  which,  only,  is  wealth 
made;  and  the  only  property  that  is  wealth  is  fixed 
property  having  a  productive  power  within  it.  In  the 
acquiring  of  such  wealth  there  need  be  no  limit  in  any 
nation. 

It  is  a  striking  illustration,  in  a  nation  having  money  to 
lend,  that  in  the  lending  nation  a  false  (credit)  money, 
like  the  present,  does  not  assimulate  in  fiirther  production, 
showing  that  it  is  merely  an  exchanger,  a  "thing  of  com- 
merce," and  therefore  it  goes  abroad  at  the  expense  of 
limited  production  of  fixed  properties;  by  its  export  caus- 
ing dear  products  and  limited  value  in  properties  at  home. 
A  nation  havmg  money  to  lend,  under  present  false 
systems,  will  increase  its  poor  and  its  poor-houses,  rela- 
tively, as  it  increases  its  lending  capacity.  Inevitable 
destiny. 

A    nation    which   borrows    money   from    another,  under 


32 

present  false  system,  indicates  too  large  a  domain,  or  too 
much  fixed  properties,  with  too  Hmited  a  power  to  make 
full  capacity  of  production.  Such  a  nation  will  not  make 
"abject  poor,"  like  the  other  nation,  but  it  will  make  uni- 
versal misery,  precarious  fortunes,  disease  and  shortened 
life  amongst  its  inhabitants. 

From  the  extreme  magnitude  of  transactions,  and  dif- 
ference in  principle  of  exchange,  under  this  system,  the 
evidences  of  money  will  represent  sums  from  one  dollar  to 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Ten,  twenty  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollar  "evidences"  will  be  then  as  common  as  fitly 
and  one  hundred  dollar  notes  are  now.  Although  thousands 
of  millions  will  be  in  circulation,  the  quantity  of  separate 
"evidences"  will  be  less  proportionably. 

As  paper  is  perishable,  and  this  money  is  to  endure 
always,  the  bureau  of  production  will  renew  all  "paper  evi- 
dences" of  five  or  ten  years  issue.  But  this  and  all  other 
machinery  of  the  department  being  merely  mechanical  and 
office  work,  need  not  cumber  this  philosophical  and 
practical,  though  brief,  annunciation  of  a  true  money,  and 
consequently  of  unshackled  production. 

The  production  of  material  substances,  and  its  money 
motor,  under  true  natural  law,  will  regulate  all  other 
branches  of  life,  and  the  "  money  motor  "  will  be  the  proper 
"  exchanger  "  of  all  productions.  As  is  the  standard  high  or 
low  in  the  capacity  of  production  in  material  substances 
within  a  nation,  so  are  all  the  people  in  comfort,  happiness, 
intellectuality  and  virtue.  There  is  no  escape  from  the 
"relative"  within  the  sphere  of  natural  laws.  Under  the 
present  system,  ^^imm.  properties  grow  faster  than  even  the 
credit  motors  (there  being  no  money),  proportionably,  be- 
cause man  can  not  expand  the  degree  of  credit  as  fast  as 


MONET  AND    GOVERNMENT.  33 

net  profits  make  additional  properties,  therefore  production 
is  far  below  what  would  he  its  capacity  under  unshackled 
industr}^,  equally  on  the  broad  American  continent,  in  North 
America  and  the  Canadas,  and  in  France  and  England. 
Although  the  aspect  is  different  in  America  and  Europe; 
w'hich  difference  it  is  unnecessary  and  perhaps  impolitic  to 
discuss  herein. 

It  must  be  true  beyond  all  question,  however  strange 
it  may  appear,  that  mankind,  in  the  aggregate,  are  reced- 
ing, in  intellectuality,  morality,  happiness  and  individual 
wealth.  The  few  may  be  growing  rich  and  learned  (learn- 
ing is  neither  wisdom  nor  understanding),  but  it  is  only 
an  exception  to  prove  the  rule. 

Credit  has  reached  a  limit,  at  which  it  should  be  sup- 
planted by  a  true  money,  which  would  totally  underlie  it, 
within  the  first  ten  years  of  its  action,  and  raise  mankind 
heavenward,  in  worldly  condition.  Otherwise,  there  will  be 
a  period  of  retrogression,  dark  and  cruel,  in  the  history  of 
the  world. 


Reflections 


Credit  is  the  inexorable  tyrant  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  has,  in  the  absence  of  the  natural  motor  of  produc- 
tion, been  of  service  in  increasing,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
productions  of  material  substances.  Without  "money,"  in 
proper  quantity,  which  is  the  true  co-motor,  the  mind  of 
man  being  the  motor,  and  without  the  system  of  credit, 
the  only  productions  would  have  been  those  of  unassisted 
physical  labor.  Mankind  generally  would  then  have  been 
somewhat  like  the  Indians  in  civilization. 

Credit  begets  debt,  and  debt  is  aUke  abhorrent  to  God 
and  Man,  because  it  dwarfs  individuality,  and  is  foreign 
to  the  natural  law  of  production.  It  sends  millions 
to  misery  and  destruction,  and  prepares  few  for  God's 
service.  Credit  is  the  "skeleton  in  the  closet"  of  present 
civilization. 

When  Robert  Burns  composed  the  following  verse, 
^^ credit"  must  have  been  the  "lordling"  to  which  he 
alluded. 

"If  I'm  designed  yon  lordling's  slave  — 
By  nature's  law  designed, 
Why  was  an  independent  wish 
E'er  planted  in  my  mind  ? 
If  not,  why  am  I  subject  to 
His  cruelty  or  scorn  ? 
Or  why  has  man  the  will  and  power 
To  make  his  fellows  mourn." 


36  ^^  IJSSAY  ON  PROBVCTION^ 

For  every  purpose  of  man's  life  there  is  a  natural  law. 
Man's  conditions  were  made  to  accord  with  laws,  already 
estabhshed.  And  man  can  only  truly  prosper  as  he  dis- 
covers and  acts  up  to  these  laws.  When  man  loses  the 
consciousness  of  his  own  individuality,  within  which  all 
truth  must  come,  if  it  comes  at  all  for  him,  by  having 
allowed  his  mind  to  fall  a  victim  to  stereotyped  systems, 
rules  and  habits,  which  have  imperceptibly  enthralled  the 
mass  of  mortals,  then  his  power  to  distinguish  between  the 
true  and  the  false  is  nearly  gone. 

The  economy  of  the  universal  kingdom  requires  of 
man,  in  this  world,  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
under  which  his  Being  is  planted;  and  the  discovery  of 
these  laws,  in  physical,  mental,  moral  and  spiritual  degree, 
and  the  exercise  of  them  afterward,  are  the  only  condi- 
tions under  which  he  can  contribute  to  the  strengthening 
and  enlarging  of  the  moral  powers  of  the  universe — to 
the  perfecting  of  his  happiness  in  the  present  life,  or,  to 
an  intelligent  hope  of  an  immortal  individual  exaltation 
hereafter.  Studying  the  economy  of  man's  existence  from 
this  stand-point,  he  has,  most  certainly,  very  much  to 
un-learn. 

No  branch  of  life's  action,  except  the  production  of 
material  substances,  requires  any  notice  whatever  here, 
beyond  saying  that  out  of  the  production  of  material  sub- 
stances, of  which  the  mind  of  man  is  the  "motor,"  and 
"credit,"  under  a  false  system,  and  "money"  under  a  true 
system,  is  the  "co-motor," — all  other  phases  of  society  have 
their  relative  advancement;. 

Under  the  base  system  of  credit,  production  is  limited 
by  demand,  and  hence,  general  advancement  is  retarded; 
but,  under  a  condition  of  unshackled  production,  which  can 


MONEY  AND    GOVERNMENT,  37 

only  be  with  a  true  money,  the  whole  family  of  man  will 
advance  rapidly  in  physical  happiness,  and  in  intellectual, 
moral  and  spiritual  grandeur;  and  vice,  beggary,  sorrow, 
and  wretchedness  will  relatively  decrease.  There  is  not  a 
doubt  of  the  soundness  of  these  premises.  And  just  as 
the  production  of  material  substances  (I  do  not  use  the 
term  labor,  of  Adam  Smith — it  is  too  limited  in  its  signifi- 
cance) approaches  a  high  or  low  standard,  so  is  all  up  or 
down  for  mankind. 

Nor  does  this  claim  in  favor  of  industry  disturb  the 
fact  that  man  is  born  with  a  brain  organism,  capable  of 
producing  every  thought,  sentiment  and  propensity  which 
characterizes  the  individual  called  man.  But  thoughts  are 
not  born,  they  are  an  after-creation ;  and  only  to  the  extent 
that  a  system  is  true  and  free,  under  which  the  man  Hves, 
do  thoughts  grow  toward  truths,  and  Truth  is  immortal! 

I  repeat,  that  a  system  of  unshackled  industry,  which 
can  only  hold  where-  a  true,  and,  consequently,  unlimited 
money  is  developed  (unlimited,  except  by  the  demand  of 
the  net  profits  of  production),  is  essential  to  the  salvation  of 
man's  present  happiness  and  future  state. 

Under  a  true  system,  with  a  proper  money,  production 
creates  demand  equal  to  its  greatest  capacity.  Nature  has 
so  ordered  the  various  capacities  and  necessities  for  differ- 
ent pursuits,  productive  and  non-productive,  that  no  people^ 
under  a  natural  money,  can  produce  more,  in  the  aggregate, 
than  they  can  consume.  If  too  much  of  one  or  more 
articles  is  produced,  then  a  proportionate  deficiency  in  other 
articles  wanted  by  that  people,  will  hold. 

Gold  established  through  an  uncomprehended  law  of 
nature,  first  as  an  "evidence"  of  money,  and  since  as  the 
"basis"  of  money,    of  most    nations,   and  yet    not   to    be 


38  ^^  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

found  in  all,  forbids  the  possibility  of  exclusiveness  by  any 
nation  as  against  all  the  others. 

And  thus,  through  the  non-universality  of  gold,  and  the 
irregularity  under  differences  of  climate,  in  the  quantity  of 
general  products,  there  follows  that  commercial  cementa- 
tion of  one  nation  with  another,  by  which  all  the  earth  shall 
be  as  "  one  people "  in  the  Eye  of  the  Universe.  And 
hereby,  the  articles  produced  in  surplus  are  exported  and 
exchanged  for  other  articles,  to  meet  what  was  manufac- 
tured in  too  little  quantity  in  the  exporting  nation. 

Under  the  true  principle, — only  possible  with  a  natural 
money,  viz :  Of  "  production  creating  demand, "  and  over- 
production of  material  substances,  or  of  money,  being  alike 
impossible, — then  production  will  hold  the  first,  and  com- 
merce the  second  rank,  in  the  world's  economy.  Commerce, 
now,  by  being  the  credit  regulator,  rules  production,  and 
is  a  besom  of  destruction  to  human  happiness  and  intellec- 
tual growth. 

Credit,  banking,  and  all  other  institutions  of  life,  are 
approaches  to  natural  law.  "Whatever  is,  is  right,"  up  to 
the  point  where  it  can  be  bettered.  Credit  has  prepared 
mankind,  through  a  century  or  two  of  fierce  and  unhappy 
activity,  for  a  true  money. 

Credit  has  sent  millions  off  the  earth,  unreclaimed  and 
lost,  for  every  one  that  it  has  strengthened  and  exalted 
in  moral  intellectuality. 

Credit,  like  the  silk  worm,  has  created  so  large  a  co- 
coon (fixed  properties),  that,  as  the  worm  dies  when  its 
cocoon  is  finished,  so  credit  is  unable  to  put  productive 
life  into  the  vastness  of  its  property  creations,  and  thus 
property  generally  is  deficient  in  value,  because  deficient 
in  productiveness  from  want  of  money,  to  cause  it  to  fully 


MONET  AND   GOVERNMENT.  39 

produce;  and,  credit  being  of  human  growth,  not  coming 
out  of  the  net  profits,  already  earned,  of  material  substances, 
can  not  keep  pace,  or  steadiness  with  the  ever  increasing 
wants  of  perpetually  increasing  fixed  properties. 

If  "production,"  by  the  existence  of  a  ti;ue  law  of 
money,  created  demand,  then  thought  and  wealth  would  be 
generally  united  in  contra-distinction  to  small  mental  capa- 
city and  small  income;  nevertheless,  under  the  true  law, 
herein  propounded,  the  most  moderate  ability  would  make 
a  certain  and  comfortable  living.  The  great  majority  of 
superior  minds  would  make  wealth,  and  the  minority  of 
of  such  would  only  fail  in  reaching  their  high  aim  because 
of  positive  faults  of  mental  or  physical  organization ;  but 
would  not  descend  to  base  poverty. 

As  all  nations,  with  elective  institutions,  must  rely  for 
permanence  on  the  virtue  and  intelligence  of  the  citizens, 
I  can  not  conceive  the  future  of  such  nations  under  the 
present  system  of  credit  as  the  basis  of  production  of 
material  substances  —  which  production  I  always  adhere  to 
as  the  "fundamental"  of  mankind's  present,  and  the  "nur- 
sery" of  their  future — without  beholding  a  hereafter  of 
moral  degradation  and  social  confusion,  preceding  a  return 
to  semi-barbarism  and  absolutism. 

No  wealth  nor  family  types,  under  the  credit  law,  can 
hope  for  perpetuation.  All  individual  excellence,  mental 
and  physical,  which,  if  wealth  were  always  fully  assured 
to  talent  and  moral  excellence,  would  be  perpetuated,  is 
now  constantly  drifted  back  into  the  baser  and  less 
advanced  levels  of  human  growth.  Nothing  short  of  the 
fierce  power  of  strong  men,  in  early  states  of  society,  sup- 
ported afterwards  by  legislative  enactments,  has  been  able 
to   secure   any    chance   of   descent  of   family  t}'pes.     But 


40  ^^  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

under  unshackled  production,  which  can  only  be  through  a 
true  money,  all  famihes  will  be  noble,  and  supported  by 
wealth,  who  possess  high  intellectual  and  moral  attributes; 
and,  as  these  are  generally  accompanied  by  true  physical 
conditions,  a  superior  race  of  mankind,  in  all  points  of  view, 
will  be  certain,  and  family  descents,  in  distinct  channels, 
will  be  as  numerous  as  the  trees  in  the  forest. 

Dupater,  a  French  philosopher,  is  said  to  have  exclaimed 
that  "in  the  physical  man  the  great  moral  mystery  lies 
concealed."  In  the  production  of  material  substances  (if 
under  a  sound  law)  will  that  "moral  mystery"  be  brought 
forth  and  cultivated,  taught  to  think,  to  feel,  to  see  and  to 
understand  nature  and  nature's  God. 

Elihu  Burritt,  in  his  benevolence,  sought  to  cheapen 
postage  between  the  nations — England  subsidizes  mail 
packets — individuals  form  charity  hospitals,  and  so  forth  ^r- 
Legislatures  pass  reUef  laws  for  debtors,  and  protecting 
laws  for  creditors.  This  is  all  mere  puny  cobbhng  on  a 
false  fundamental  system  of  human  life.  Within  the  law 
of  unshackled  production  there  will  be  no  poor,  no  debtors, 
no  creditors.  Thought  will  be  far  more  generally  diffused, 
and  man  will  then  hold  a  position  of  individual  freedom. 
There  is  no  man  really  free  under  the  present  system 
which  governs  production.  It  is  not  intended  by  nature 
that  in  forming  nations  the  individual  should  lose  his  indi- 
viduality; but  he  has,  and  it  never  can  be  restored  until 
production  is  unshackled,  and  debtor  and  creditor  unknown 
terms. 

Under  the  present  system  all  profits  go  into  properties, 
such  as  farms,  houses,  machinery ;  and  why  ?  Because  the 
world  has  never  yet  had  a  money  channel  where  any  por- 
tion of  net  profits  can  be  permanently  planted  as  money. 


MONET  AKB   GOVERNMENT.  41 

Thus  all  production  resolves  its  profits  into  "properties/' 
to  be  afterwards  moved  by  a  credit.  Every  thing  called 
money,  issued  by  Banks  or  Governments,  is  mere  credit. 
Gold  is  not  money,  and  there  is  only  enough  of  it  to  form 
a  '^measure"  of  money.  All  the  gold  held  by  banks  in 
"rest,"  is  neither  money  nor  the  "evidences"  of  money. 
It  is  mere  bullion,  held  by  banks  as  a  contingent  against 
losses  on  their  loans,  and  to  create  a  species  of  confidence 
towards  gaining  a  public  credit  for  their  "promises  to  pay" 
and  deposits. 

Gold  is  unqualified  to  become  a  money  "evidence,"  from 
its  limitations  in  quantity,  and  because  of  its  fluctuating, 
merchantable  character.  Money,  itself,  is  an  invisible  sub- 
stancoy  emanating  under  a  true  law,  however,  from  the  net 
profits  previously  earned  in  the  production  of  material 
substances. 

A  natural  money  is  only  limited  by  the  amount  of  net 
profits  requiring  it,  and  by  the  amount  that  fixed  prop- 
erties can  absorb  in  creating  further  production  with  the 
same. 

A  natural  money  needs  no  redemption,  but  should  con- 
tinue always  growing,  as  the  producing  properties  increase, 
and  should  be  intrinsically  valuable,  by  being  indoctrinated 
in  every  value  of  the  whole  nation,  inasmuch  as  all  prop- 
erties are  dependent  on  it  for  their  value,  and  have  had  a 
full  "measure"  of  the  money  in  gold  expended  in  their 
behalf,  and  been  increased  in  value  to  tbe  extent  of  the 
money  motor  supplied,  and  of  the  sum  not  drawn  away 
by  taxation  and  tariffs. 

.  The  boundary  of  all  nations  is  naturally  designed  to 
fall  within  the  convenient  evolutions  of  the  industrial 
economy,   and    the    expenses    of    a    government   naturally 


42  ^^  ESSAY  ON  PBODUGTION, 

required  to  protect  the  property  to  be  acquired,  and  the 
citizen  while  acquiring  and  enjoying  the  same,  form  the 
highway  of  nature,  for  the  creation  of  a  true  money. 
Without  this  common  necessity  for  a  government,  and  the 
expenses  of  governing,  there  would  be  no  way  to  make  a 
true  money  of  a  universal  value  within  a  nation,  and  of 
unquestioned  reliability  in  all  the  world. 

Credit  is  a  false  money,  be  it  in  Bank,  Government  or 
Individual  notes;  it  all  rests  on  the  profits  t/et  to  be  made, 
and  not,  like  a  true  money,  on  the  profits  already  earned. 

Credit  is  therefore  unsteady,  unsafe,  limited,  expensive, 
and  it  requires  the  half  of  each  day  of  man's  life  to  obtain 
it — to  manage  it,  and  to  pay  it.  It  makes  all  fixed  prop- 
erty too  cheap,  and  all  productions  too  dear.  It  makes, 
also,  too  much  of  the  former,  and  too  little  of  the  latter, 
under  its  system,  but  as  compared  with  the  rule  of  a  true 
money  and  unshackled  production,  far  too  little  of  both. 

Money  that  does  not  arise  out  of  the  net  profits  of  pro- 
duction never  fuses  into  the  industry  of  the  nation;  it  can 
not  be  evenly  obtained  to  move  proauction.  It  never  goes 
into  the  saw-mill,  the  farm,  the  workshop,  the  village,  the 
town,  the  city,  to-day,  where  profits  were  made  yesterday. 
And  aU  men — farmers,  mechanics,  manufacturers — although 
making  profits  daily,  are  poor  in  money  to  move  further 
production.  Thus,  under  this  false  system,  demand  only 
creates,  and  at  the  same  time  limits  production,  and  this 
'4imit"  it  is  which  originates  what  the  clergy  call  the 
"wrath  of  God,"  for  it  covers  the  earth  with  sorrow  and 
anguish,  wretchedness  and  despair. 

A  true  money,  arising  out  of  the  net  profits  of  yester- 
day, will  be  found  through  the  local  banker,  in  the  very 
workshop  or  farm  to-day,  where  it  was  earned,  stimulating 


MONET  AND   OOV^ENMENT.  43 

more  and  more  production.  It  will  cost  no  interest  or  any 
time  to  obtain  it,  it  will  ensure  cheapened  production  and 
money  sales  for  every  thing.  It  will  produce  money  and 
properties  relatively  equal,  and  multiply  the  productions  and 
the  fixed  properties,  hundreds-fold  beyond  the  power  of 
the  present  system.  Under  a  true  money  and  unshackled 
production,  production  will  create  demand.  Every  thing 
will  then  be  sold  that  can  be  made;  too  much  can  not  be 
made,  and  cash  transactions  will  be  universal.  And  this 
"unlimit"  will  remove  that  same  "wrath  of  God"  from 
off  the  face  of  the  earth  for  ever. 

The  processes  of  life,  advanced  by  Adam  Smith  and 
his  successors,  have  made  most  things  ready  to  hand,  such 
as  values,  exchanges  and  so  forth,  therefore  nothing  is 
required  of  me  but  to  proclaim  the  process  of  a  true 
money;  and  it  will,  if  adopted,  step  into  life  silently  and 
unobtrusively,  assimulating  with  all  the  rules  of  hfe  and 
machinery  of  business  now  extant,  and  yet  within  ten 
YEARS  all  debts  of  Individuals  and  of  Governments,  no 
matter  how  large,  and  interest  on  money,  will  be  extinct. 
The  Government  debts  having  been  paid  in  gold,  the  sup- 
ply and  demand  of  money  will  then  be  equal  to  meeting 
every  transaction  where  credit  now  is  necessary.  Taxation 
will  cease  at  once  with  the  adoption  of  this  law,  inasmuch 
as  the  gold  rolled  into  the  bureau  of  production  will  far 
exceed  the  expenses  of  the  chief  Government,  from  the 
veiy  first  application  of  the  law.  Tariffs,  which  are  merely 
indications  of  an  incapable  system  of  production,  may 
depart  at  once,  as  far  as  Revenue  is  concerned;  and  in 
policy  (?)  as  gradually  as  credit  disappears,  for  with  a  full 
money  in  supply  and  demand  equal,  no  one  country  can 
undersell  another,  unless  from  superior  intellectuality  applied 


44  ^^  ESSAY  ON  PRODUCTION, 

to  production.  Unsliackled  production,  to  be  so,  needs  a 
true  money,  but  the  full  economy  of  the  nation  requires 
also  untrammeled  commerce,  free  goods  and  no  navigation 
laws. 

With  the  incubus  of  a  false  system  removed,  mankind 
under  the  benign  influence  of  unshackled  production,  and 
as  credit  and  its  offspring,  debt,  disappear,  and  a  full 
money  advances,  will  see  poverty  growing  less  and  less; 
and  will  feel  the  spirit  of  truth  gradually  dawning  upon 
the  long  period  of  darkness  that  has  heretofore  shrouded 
their  understandings ;  and  the  spiritual  man  will  step 
forth,  to  be  no  more  enslaved  by  the  bondage  of  material 
transactions.  The  individual  will  then  have  his  individual- 
ity intact.  He  will  be  a  law  unto  himself,  and  will  work 
out  his  own  truths  and  his  own  salvation. 

Then,  there  will  be  no  more  "poor,"  and  less  disease 
and  crime ;  but  there  will  be  great  general  happiness  and 
much  increased  length  of  days.  Men  will  stay  longer  in 
business,  because  it  will  be  safe  and  pleasant  to  do  so. 

When  production  creates  demand,  the  conception  of  a 
real  earnest  'present,  full  of  purposes  to  God  and  man, 
clothed  in  justice,  benevolence  and  truth,  will  dawn  upon 
the  world,  and  man  will  see  God  face  to  face,  instead  of 
imagining  Him  in  or  behind  the  clouds.  And  it  may 
arise,  that  the  teachings  and  example  of  Jesus  Christ  will 
then  be  comprehended  as  indicating,  between  the  present 
and  the  future,  a  harmony  which  human  reason  will  under- 
stand, believe,  and  act  upon. 

I  confine  myself,  mostly,  to  pronouncing  what  is  the 
true  law  of  money,  but  while  I  rest  with  that,  I  could 
easily  and  satisfactorily  explain  and  prove,  how  all  affairs, 
including  foreign   exchange  and   transactions,  will  be   sub- 


MONET  AND    GOVERNMENT.  45 

sidiary  to,  and  be  regulated  by,  the  great  domestic  wheel 
whose  axis  is  in  the  bureau  of  production.  Should  any 
nation  adopt  this  system,  and  the  others  did  not,  then  that 
nation  would  undersell  the  world,  and  exchange  would  be 
most  extensively  in  its  favor.  But  w^hen  all  the  nations 
of  the  world  adopt  the  natural  law  of  money,  as  I  trust 
they  all  will,  sooner  or  later,  and  the  basis  of.  all  transac- 
tions being  then  ready  money,  then  the  foreign  exchanges 
will  be  a  mere  secondary  affair.  No  present  banking  sys- 
tem, or  its  issues,  will  be  legally  disturbed;  their  notes 
will  be  gradually  displaced  under  the  new  system  and  new 
money.  All  natural  laws  are  conservative,  and  the  best 
test  of  the  soundness  of  the  law  which  I  advance  is  that 
every  person  and  every  kind  of  transaction  in  life  will  be 
benefited  by  it.  Truly  understood,  natural  laws  do  not 
pull  down — they  build  up! 

Wars,  plagues,  famines  are  but  trifles  in  their  effects 
and  results  as  compared  with  the  slavery  of  credit  and  the 
debasement  of  debt. 

Debt  in  every  shape,  from  a  bar  of  soap  to  millions  in 
government  stocks  or  railway  bonds,  is  abhorrent  to  the 
natural  law  of  production;  and  mortgages  on  fixed  proper- 
ties, when  general,  as  they  are  in  the  United  States  and 
Canadas,  indicate  the  last  round  of  the  ladder  in  the  career 
of  credit  here,  as  the  fearful  pauperism  of  Europe  fore- 
warns the  end  of  the  credit  system  there. 

As  debt  increases,  the  productions  of  labor  decrease  in 
profitability ;  but  as  debt  decreases  ihQ  production  of  mate- 
rial substances,  and  of  all  other  occupations,  multiply  in 
quantity  and  in  profit,  to  the  extent  of  debt  discharged, 
by  triple  over  triple,  onward. 

There   can   be  no  indebtedness   created   by  a  nation  so 


46  ^^  ESSAY  ON  PRODUGTIOJSr, 

large  but  that  there  must  be  productive  power  in  the  nation 
equal  to  discharging  it.  So  long  as  debt  weighs  upon  pro- 
duction, through  tariffs,  taxation  and  credit  money,  produc- 
tion can  not  rise  to  the  power  of  rescuing  itself  Hence 
we  see  population  thrown  out  of  work,  poorhouses  filled, 
brains  stagnated  and  the  moral  man  petrified. 

Debt  is  unnecessary  and  unprofitable,  originating  out  of 
the  imperfect  knowledge  of  how  to  apply  floating  and  fixed 
capital  to  their  relative  conditions  and  proportions.  It  has 
not  only  desolated  the  human  happiness  and  economy  of 
three-fourths  of  mankind,  for  centuries,  but  has  latterly, 
from  its  greater  force  and  energy,  deteriorated  so  much, 
through  descent,  the  material  organism  of  the  brain,  that 
intense  selfishness  and  unrefined  passions  predominate  to 
bar  the  door  on  high  moral  intellectuahty  in  all  matters 
bearing  upon  the  amelioration,  or  refining,  of  the  condition 
of  mankind. 

Men,  with  destructiveness,  secretiveness  and  acquisitive- 
ness large,  and  with  adhesiveness,  concentrativeness,  con^ 
scientiousness  and  benevolence  moderate,  no  matter  how 
strong  their  intellectual  organs,  will  not  see  the  truth  in 
this  essay.  It  is  not  necessary  that  all  men  should.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  some  will,  who  have  power  to  sway 
legislation,  and  then,  when  this  law  is  operative,  it  will 
rain  its  blessings  on  all  alike,  rich  and  poor,  good  and  bad, 
wise  and  foolish. 

Nature  laid  the  foundation,  Adam  Smith  and  his  suc- 
cessors built  the  columns,  and,  I  beHeve,  it  has  been  given 
to  me  to  place  the  keystone  in  the  arch  of  Political  Econ- 
omy. This  assumption  of  mine  may  sound  like  a  boast. 
I  do  not  mean  it  as  such,  but  being  convinced  myself,  I 
place   my  U(jM   on   a  high  elevation,  that  it  may  be  seen 


MONEY  AND    GOVERNMENT,  47 

of  all  men,  and  only  be  extinguished  by  a  new  and 
greater  light.  Any  attempt  to  discredit,  by  appeal  to  the 
present  unintellectual  hotch-potch  system  of  temporary  ex- 
pediencies of  the  credit  system,  upon  which  life  is  certainly 
not  moving  upwards,  will  be  no  argument,  but  merely  the 
dull  animal  assertions  of  non-thought. 

The  laws  of  nature  are  beneficent,  and  a  system  where 
ignorance,  misery,  poverty  and  sin  are  the  rule,  and  where 
wisdom  and  understanding,  happiness,  wealth  and  virtue 
are  the  exceptions,  forms  no  foundation  for  argument  against 
a  declaration  of  truth. 


y.y 


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